Previews

The Suffering: The Ties that Bind

We go hands-on with the sequel to Surreal Software's jailhouse nightmare and discover something worse than prison: Baltimore.

Spiffy:

More atmospheric than the original; clever new monsters; tighter movement controls.

Iffy:

Torque's visions are now more frequent and jarring; many "new" monsters are only slight tweaks of the originals.

Listening to the cacophony that was the demonstration room for Midway's Gamers' Day, one could hear the cries of dying Egyptian soldiers, the yelling of Shaolin monks decapitating opponents, and the throaty growl of stolen vehicles driving through Los Angeles. The one sound that really jumped out for me though, was the sickening sound of ripping flesh and splattering blood. At first I thought that some of the IGN editors had found the prime rib at the buffet table. Imagine my surprise, though, when I finally found one of the titles I'd been most looking forward to, The Suffering: The Ties that Bind, the sequel to Surreal Software's The Suffering, a fascinating blend of third person shooter and survival horror gameplay released last year.

If you haven't played the original game, the premise is that you are Torque, a man in prison awaiting execution for murdering his family. When demons take over the prison, you have to fight your way out, all the while being tormented by visions of your murdered family. Your actions during the breakout determine whether you're actually innocent or guilty along with which of the game's three endings you'll get. The sequel picks up right where the original left off, with Torque now free and heading back to his old hometown, Baltimore. In fact, should players have finished the original game, their moral status on their saved game will determine which of three different beginnings they'll see when they fire up The Ties that Bind.

Naturally, the biggest change to the game is the locale. Unlike the claustrophobic confines of the first game's prison, this time around, Torque will be traveling around the burned out remnants of his old neighborhood in east Baltimore, a wreck of a town where being infested by demons might actually increase the property values. Or perhaps not, because unlike the original game, the demons that dog Torque's steps this time are now symbolic of urban decay. In the levels I was able to play through, I fought with an Arsonist, a flaming humanoid who leaps out of burning buildings and hits hard with an exploding ring of fire, a group of zombie dogs with human heads, and figures with knives for arms and legs who are symbolic of street violence. Unfortunately, I also noticed that many of the "new" creatures were merely redresses of enemies from the first game -- "Lethal injection" from the first game, for example, is now a "drug abuse" demon.

Interestingly, the demon that undergoes the biggest change is Torque himself. Torque's inner monster has gotten an upgrade. Not only is it now 50% tougher, but its appearance and attacks will actually change to reflect your morality. Choose the path of evil and you become a spiky demon with terrifying blade attacks. Choose the lighter side, on the other hand, and you still become a demon, only bright yellow with a sword grafted to your arm and, errr, terrifying blade attacks. You'll need those abilities, though, because the enemies you'll fight are bigger, badder, and represent the worst elements of urban darkness. During my game I was able to take on the Creeper, a leather-coated sicko symbolic of violence against women, Gorge, a junk-food fueled creature that's almost all mouth, and finally Horde, a towering symbol of "the projects."

The best news, however, is the game's controls feel much tighter than the original. The ability to jump is most welcome, and Torque can now crouch to get into tight spaces. While there's no auto-aim feature, the aiming tolerances for the game feel relatively forgiving, meaning that moving and aiming using a console joypad doesn't require the reflexes of a roadrunner on speed. Using a keyboard and mouse on a PC should make the fast-paced combat even more enjoyable. This is especially important since, while the monsters don't seem to have gotten much smarter, they're much more aggressive and pack a bigger punch.

In fact, if there's one element that seems a little iffy, it's that the game's developers seem to have taken the conceit of the original game -- Torque's visions, the whispers of voices in his head, and the hallucinations of people and monsters that seem to pop up out of nowhere -- and possibly gone a bit overboard in the sequel. While I wasn't able to play more than a few levels of the game, those areas I did play through seemed to get interrupted every few seconds by the game suddenly going into slow motion, a violent vision splashing across the screen, or some sort of short cut-scene. It was as atmospheric as Hell (literally), and the storyline seems even more effective and disturbing this time around, but it could get annoying if it happens through the whole game. All quibbles aside, though, if The Ties that Bind manages to be even half as fun as the original, it'll make this piece of hell, a little slice of Heaven. The Suffering: The Ties that Bind is scheduled for release this Fall.